3D Printed DIY Leather Stamps

Black Beard Projects made a video where he shows how he designs leather stamps in Fusion 360 and how he uses them to make patterns with a hand press. With this method, you can make any number of highly custom stamps you need without buying them or waiting for delivery.
It is another great example how 3d printing can be used in even more traditional handcrafts.

Here is the creator's FB page:

https://www.facebook.com/BlackBeardProjects/


Here is the close-up of the stamp making a pattern on a hand-made leather knife sheet

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Amazing Laser Cut and 3D Printed Art by John Edmark

John Edmark creates the most amazing art pieces inspired by fractal geometry, spirals and natural organic shapes using laser cutting and 3d printing.





The laser cut movable tentacle gripper from plywood is something I would like to make...


The art of John Edmark is described in depth in this talk by Paul Dancstep:




Artist's homepage with detailed presentations of many sculptures:

http://www.johnedmark.com/

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DIY 3D Printed No 2 Pencil by Josh Hughes

Josh Hughes 3d printed a fully working No. 2 pencil. He used a type of wood PLA with a standard graphite insert. 

Josh wrote:

Next time I will use an electric sharpener. I was worried the heat from sharpening it with and electric sharpener would melt the plastic.
Anyhow, The body of the No. 2 pencil is HatchBox Wood PLA, and the eraser connection is Protopasta's HTPLA Carbon Fiber.
The "No. 2" was laser-engraved on the face of the pencil after it had finished printing, and all of the components were superglued together.

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Using 3D printing pens for art

I'm not a huge fan of 3d printing pens (probably because I draw on pre-school level) but here are some people who use them to make some fine 3d pop art.

The apex of modern civilization: Pokemon figurines...




... and some useful things like this T-Rex skeleton:




Check their YT channel:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOvm1ePlttS6hWatuHThw_A

Their Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/3dpenschool/

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3D Printable Flexible Memory Structures by Peng Jin

Peng Jin used NinjaFlex filament to produce flexible structures with memory effect that can be used for various applications from architecture to art. 

Project description:

Taking advantage of the TPE (specially formulated thermoplastic elastomer), I did a series of study with my Printrbot Simple Metal, testing out both the limit of the material and the printer. Such as printing larger volume with a relatively smaller printer which could offer better accuracy, and print flexible material with bi-stable units to create shape-memory structure. I applied all the ideas from these studies to my architecture design afterwards, creating products and spaces with flexibility and adaptability, as wells as new ways of interaction between human and product, even more, between individuals with these potential produces.

You can find full project info at:

https://www.instructables.com/id/3D-PRINTED-SELF-MEMORY-STRUCTURE/

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First Space 3D Printed Art Piece

Astronauts on International Space Station 3d printed a first space art object named "Laugh".

From project description:

#Laugh is a collaboration between Israeli artist Eyal Gever and the California-based company Made In Space, which owns and operates the Additive Manufacturing Facility (AMF), the ISS' commercially available 3D printer.

The project began Dec. 1, 2016, when Gever and his team launched an app that converts the sound waves of users' laughter into a digital 3D model, or "laugh star." More than 100,000 people generated their own laugh stars throughout December, Made In Space representatives said.

App users then voted on their favorite laugh star. The winner was Naughtia Jane Stanko of Las Vegas, whose model was beamed up to the ISS and printed out Friday

Laugh 3d printed sculpture floating in ISS microgravity with Earth showing trough the observation window. Source: NASA

Source article with much more information:

http://www.space.com/35723-first-3d-printed-art-space-station.html

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How to use your 3d printer as a 2d drawing plotter

Tech2C from Australia made a video on how he uses his 3d printer as a plotter. He attached a pen to his extruder and uses is to draw on a paper. He also goes into how he uses Cura, g-code and various settings to get the best drawing.

Here is the video of the plotter in action:



Tech2C YT channel:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_scf0U4iSELX22nC60WDSg/videos


Here is the pen attached to the extruder:

Here is close up of one of the drawings in process. It's a B-17 Flying Fortress:

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Sometimes you have to work hard for your 3d print!

Project homepage:

http://urbainstudio.com/#/the-graduation-trophy/

Update:

There are several similar projects, like this one:

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DIY Glass FDM 3D Printer by Stefanie Pender

Stefanie Pender made a glass FDM machine which extrudes molten glass guided by an industrial robotic arm. Glass is melted by oxygen/propane welding torch.  She achieves simple geometric forms, but she gets A for effort and coolness in my book.

Printer working:




Here is the glass "filament" extruder:




Detailed project overview can be found at:

http://www.instructables.com/id/Glass-Fused-Deposition-Modeling-FDM/

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How to make a DIY camera lens from old optics

Mathieu Stern made a DIY monocle lens for his digital camera by using some vintage old optics and a 3D printer.


Here is the project video, the photographs are amazing:






Here is a project homepage with more details:

http://nofilmschool.com/2016/11/master-weird-lenses-just-made-3d-printed-lens-and-its-awesome


Here is the entire setup mounted on a camera:

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3D Printing History 6 - Small Soldiers

Here is probably one the first appearance of a 3d printer in mainstream cinematography. It was in a movie named "Small Soldiers" from 1998. My kid brother really liked that one.

They show an early stereolitography machine, the model looks realistic when it comes out of the resin tank, but the process was made to look faster and with visible lasers.

Here is the video from YT:




For other posts about history of 3d printing just click at tag "history" beneath.

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Custom 3D Printed Lamy Joy Fountain Pen

Kris Slyka made this custom 3D printed body and cap for his Lamy Joy calligraphy fountain pen. He made it in ColorFabb bronze and bamboo fill filament.

Source:

https://twitter.com/krisslyka/status/769891709375447040

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Steampunk Style DIY 3D Printer

Someone on SyFyCity Tumblr made a custom steampunk styled 3d printer that looks amazing. Kudos man!

You can see different steampunk styled machine here:

http://diy3dprinting.blogspot.com/2015/02/steampunk-style-diy-3d-printer-based-on.html

Source:

http://syfycity.tumblr.com/post/145250443923/i-made-a-steampunk-themed-3d-printer

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Rise of 3D Printing Spam?

Shiv Integer is a bot developed by artists Matthew Plummer-Fernandez and Julien Deswaef which downloads CC licensed 3D models from Thingiverse, mixes them up into weird new shapes, adds machine generated titles and descriptions to them, and posts them back. It is mostly not printable on a common 3d printer.

It is a form of artistic exploration and it opens many questions about Thingiverse as repository, intellectual property and re-mixing vulture.
But, if we look at it from another angle: IT IS 3D PRINTING SPAM!!!  Well at least it is a precursor to spam :-) Proto-3DPI spam. Yes boys and girls, welcome to the 21st century, where spam is 3d printed.

First thing on Shiv's FAQ page is this:

 − Is it Spam?
No, this is not spam; it is done with good intentions and with the aim of contributing new, thought-provoking, poetic and even humorous ways of making things.

... that is what all spammers say :-) !!!

Here is a project description:

Shiv Integer is a bot that inhabits Thingiverse to find and download 3D models, make assemblages of these, and post its creations back on Thingiverse, whilst respecting and retaining the Creative Commons licensing of the source models. It also generates names, descriptions and renders for all of its designs. To date (6.5.16) it has made 298 objects. The bot was launched on the 15th February and our involvement in the project was kept secret until 9th April.

Here is a video showing the object the bot re-mixed:



Project homepage:

http://www.plummerfernandez.com/Shiv-Integer

Article about the project:

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/05/that-time-a-bot-invaded-thingiverse-and-created-weird-new-3d-objects/

Shiv Integer Thingiverse profile and uploads:

https://www.thingiverse.com/shivinteger/about

Artist behind Shiv Integer also developed Disarming Corruptor software which can encrypt 3d models which is much more useful and thought provoking.

http://diy3dprinting.blogspot.hr/2013/12/disarming-corruptor-3d-model-encryption.html

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Cx5 Sculptable 3D Printing Filament

Here is a 3d printing material you can sculpt after the print process. When you add some heat you can re-sculpt it over and over again. You can easily smooth and post-process your prints adding fine details, which is specially useful in creative and artistic work.

Here is Tested video showing the material:



Here is the company presentation:


Here is the filament producers homepage:

http://www.sculptyourprint.com/

I would like to review this material :-)

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Aluminum Sand Casting 3D Printed Nose Ring

It's a nose ring. Get it? NOSE RING...
David Kent Watson 3d scanned his face, 3d printed his nose and used lost PLA casting to make it in aluminum. Cool project. I would wear that ring.

Here is the ring being sand casted:



Project homepage with much more details:

http://dkentwatson.com/art/the-nose-ring/

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Some people think 3D printing is not a good idea ...

...and they may have some good points. People from Additivism collective focus on general pollution by plastics and critique of consumerist society with more and more stuff being made that severs no purpose ...

Some interesting bits I found in their presentation:

3D printing + spam + micropayments = tribbles
that you get billed for, as it replicates wildly out of control.

90% of everything is rubbish, and it's all in your spare room – or someone else's spare room, which you're forced to rent through AirBnB.

Source: @justinpickard

You can see a more detailed presentation at:

http://additivism.org/transmediale

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Is 3d printing useful?

Kent Watson has made this video showing some useful and useless objects ...

Project description:

3d Printed Watches which don't tell time! Items created to waste time! Has the world gone mad!?

This video highlights some of the more recent designs I have made using Fusion 360 and 3D printed in the Digital Craft Research Lab at UWM.

http://dkentwatson.com/new/

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Water shadow art with 3d printed sheets

Swiss artists made this 3d printed project where they uses sintered sheets that produce shadows in water pond bottom and show words of a haiku. Cool.




Project homepage:

http://www.drzachsuchy.ch/#!haiku/chm5

Sintered 3d sheet

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Converting an old toolbox into a DIY 3d printer

Chad Bridgewater is a maker that uses old machines and converts them into 3d printers and other digital fabrication devices. They have a great retro style. See his previous work here, it is a must-study if you are a fan of more rough and raw retro design. 

Now he is converting an old metal toolbox into a custom 3d printer. I really like the look and convergence of old and modern. The box he uses is a Huot toolbox that was once used as a "Blower Repair Kit", the toolbox has a fold-down front panel door.

Here is a latest video presentation from video series showing each step of the process:



For detailed build log take a look at:

http://chadbridgewater.blogspot.com/2015/06/boca.html

Another great project Chad!

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